Been Here Once Before
by Factorielle
Summary: Three years after the end, Abe never expected to see Mihashi again, except maybe on the cover of baseball magazines. And he was fine with that. Really. Abe, Mihashi, Tajima


Abe woke up to a persistent buzzing and a sky too bright for it to be early morning. The latter told him he'd had the foresight to turn off his alarm clock before falling asleep; the former, that someone was calling him. Probably a good soul wondering why the hell he wasn't in class when his attendance record had gone past flirting with expulsion and on to sexual harassment.

In addition to the increasing likelihood of a career as a convenience store clerk, there were the minor matters of a mild headache, a taste in his mouth that felt like something -possibly himself- had been sick in it, and the weight of a body on the side of the mattress he wasn't occupying.

None of those things were particularly conducive to staying in bed, but he wouldn't have too much trouble ignoring them if only the caller would give up already. It was too late for class, anyway, and everything else could wait.

The buzzing stopped, eventually; only to start again mere seconds later. Whoever was on the other side, it was becoming clear they weren't going to let his gruff voicemail message discourage them. No more sleep, then.

Abe slid out of bed with a groan, but by the time he found his phone among the clothes strewn over the floor, the last buzz had turned into the second missed call from 'Unknown number'. There were also a few emails, none of which came from actual people. He skimmed over the morning's bank statement and the university's weekly recapitulation of the upcoming special conferences, then stared blankly at a subject line that claimed the message held all the latest sports news.

He hit the delete button as hard as he could.

The slim figure on the bed rolled over, taking up what little space Abe had managed to keep during the night. No retreat there.

He almost kicked a pile of unfinished, unsubmitted homework on his way to the kitchenette, where he gazed blankly at the half-empty cup of cold coffee that had been left abandoned on the counter. Would it even be worth heating it up, or should he just drink it cold and be done with his first caffeine intake of the day? It was likely to become the most exciting decision he'd make all day, but he still couldn't bring himself to care either way.

This time it was the landline phone that started ringing, loud and strident. He took the time to stick the cup in the microwave before picking up, growling his name in his most unpleasant voice which, for all intents and purposes, wasn't difficult to summon.

"Abe! You didn't come to class this morning?"

This... wasn't a classmate. No one who knew him now would have the nerve to be so cheerful at him. Yet the voice was familiar, hauntingly so, and he felt his fingers clench around the reciever. He knew that voice, or had known it. If he could focus past the headache, he would be able to taste the name on his tongue. He had a feeling it would be bitter like adrenaline.

"Who is this?" he asked instead.

"It's Tajima!" Mildly reproacheful. "You can't tell?"

There it was, his throat drying at nothing but the mention of a name. He didn't need to wonder about the ramifications of Tajima calling him to know this couldn't be good.

"It's been a while." His voice was a little too loud, a little too high.

On the bed, the girl groaned and kicked the blanket off, revealing the small, slim body of a traditional Japanese beauty.

"Yush!" Then, as if they hadn't been out of contact for three years: "Why aren't you at school?"

There were so many things wrong with that question that Abe instinctively went for the childish answer. "How do you know I'm not?" His eyes wandered back to the girl, who was sitting up and stretching slowly, short hair sliding over her shoulders as she moved.

"Because we came to see you! You were really hard to find, you know, and then we got to your classroom and you weren't there."  
_  
We_. This was where the anxiety drumming under his skin turned to outright panic, because 'we' was not anyone Abe was up to talking to. He resisted the urge to hang up on the spot; Tajima had never been the type to let go of anything.

"I'm not going today. What do you want?"

Tajima's trademark grin was audible even through the phone, which didn't make things any easier. "Ren wants to talk to you. I got the address from the secretary, we can get to your place in twenty minutes."

"No!" The word slipped through his lips without warning, making even the girl jump and look at him curiously. He shook his head and pinched the top of his nose, trying to focus, but his mind seemed stuck on a repeating loop of _no_ and _no_ and _don't_.

It had occurred to him before that replacing his morning run with caffeine hadn't been a smart move, but for the first time since _then_ he was seriously regretting having stopped relaxation training.

"Eh? Why not?"

It was a wonder how Tajima could sound so genuine about this when he'd been right there at the time to see everything unfold.

"I can't-" he started, trying to make up an excuse, any excuse, something about having to visit his dying brother on his hospital bed, anything that would let him out of this.

"Ah! Hold on a minute!" There were muffled scuffling noises on the other side, and Abe gave up on trying to understand what was going on when the microwave beeped. He didn't move and watched as the girl, now wearing one of his few clean shirts, looking for something edible in his cupboards.

After the amount of alcohol they'd consumed last night, it wasn't a bad idea. At least in theory, because she wasn't likely to find much.

She grimaced when the microwave insisted, and handed him the mug with barely a look. The noises on the line went on, still unidentifiable, as she climbed on a stool to reach the higher cupboard. Abe remembered her movements as elegant and controlled, and part of the little conversation they'd had was about how her dance club back in high school had been closed in favour of the baseball club; she'd still been bitter enough about it to explain her presence in one of the precious few bars lefts that didn't have gigantic screens dedicated to whatever hot game was being played at any given time.

She was as graceful now as she'd been in his bed, perfect balance on the unsteady stool and the shirt riding high on her thighs, but that wasn't what he was looking at as his fingers clenched around the mug.

Because from behind, wearing a shirt too big for her, she could easily be taken for something she wasn't. Her light brown hair was mussed up from sleep into bangs and spikes and how had he not noticed last night that she looked like-

Hadn't he, though?

"Okay, so, we're hiding in a bathroom now but I think they're going to find us again soon."

Tajima's voice brought him back to the present, which wasn't looking much better than the past at this point.

"Who are you hiding from?"

"There are a lot of baseball fans at your university."

The headache wasn't going to get any better today, this Abe was sure of. That was a side effect of Tajima's he'd rather have left buried in his memories with the rest of high school.

"Yes, there are," he sighed, and didn't even bother to ask Tajima how Japan's most cherished player still didn't treat crowds following him around wherever he went as a matter of fact. "What did you expect?"

"I didn't think we'd have to hide in a bathroom! Look, I'm going to hang up. We'll be there in twenty minutes or something. Don't run off!"

A click was followed by the busy tone, that left nothing to hang on to but _we're coming_ and a growing coffee stain on Abe's sweatpants from where he'd let the mug in his hand tip over.

He had twenty minutes before facing Mihashi for the first time since-

"There's nothing in your kitchen." The foreign voice made him jump. He'd almost forgotten the girl was there. When he looked back at her, whatever resemblance he'd been seing had disappeared. It wasn't as comforting as it could have been. "Do you survive on coffee and spite?"

"There's also some beer in the fridge door," he answered without thinking, already prioritizing everything he had to do in the next fifteen minutes.

She gave him a level gaze for a few seconds, then rolled her eyes and headed for the bathroom.

"You can't take a shower,"Abe said, his eyes running all over the small flat. Dirty clothes, notes from class spilled here and there on the floor, bed unmade and sheets reeking of sex with a girl whose name he couldn't remember asking for.

His life, as it had been since he'd taken the last of the world's repeated cues that baseball wasn't for him after all.

"Why not?" She'd just gone from unimpressed to irritated, and he really didn't have time to deal with that. Why couldn't she just go already?

"People are coming over. You need to leave. And I need a shower." He heard her disgusted snort as he stepped in the shower, and remembered something. "And leave the shirt!"

She'd be gone before he was out of the shower. A mistake, bringing her here, but everything he did on game nights was a mistake anyway. He'd become used to it, over time.

The shower was the one good thing about this hole he lived in. It went as hot as he ever needed, and could caress sore muscles or pound needles of water onto his shoulders at will. For today he chose the latter, but neither the noise nor the harsh pressure were enough to stop his thoughts.

_I was wrong about you._

He would have drowned himself in the water if he'd had a chance, but there was no time, no time for anything except rush rush rush to make his living space acceptable for...

What?

_In the end you're no better than him._

What exactly was he hoping for, scrubbing the smell of sex off his skin until it was raw, washing his hair despite the lack of time – trying to do what? Look good? Like that was going to matter.

Dammit!

_So go. You have my blessing. Fuck off and don't look back._

Like shampoo and clean clothes were going to change anything.

Not that he even _had_ any clean clothes left, he found out when he went back to his room. His last pair of sweatpants was irremediably stained, and while the girl _had_ left him his shirt, she'd kissed a bright red lipstick mark on the collar before leaving.

Abe supposed it was fair enough, as revenge for a disappointing one-night-stand followed by a rude wake-up call. But that didn't help him much.

At least the pants he'd been wearing the previous night didn't smell, and he'd taken enough clean underwear from home to last him a lifetime, so that would have to do.

He hit the switch of the water cooker out of sheer muscle memory on his way to the laundry basket, where he tossed the bedsheets and a number of socks that should have been in there for a long time already.

Then there was opening the windows and stacking up all the loose sheets of paper covered in diagrams and calculations, making the coffee almost absently and putting fresh sheets on the bed.

"So you don't hide the porn under the mattress?"

Abe didn't jump. Considering Tajima had somehow managed to sneak up on him from the other side of the bed, he felt it had to be put to his credit. He didn't turn around either, and that took a lot more effort when his nape prickled with the sensation of being watched.

Damn the bitch for leaving the door open.

"I live by myself now. I don't need to hide anything." Talking to Tajima was easy -so easy it made people say things they later regretted - but Abe still picked up the stained shirt and put it on, a flismy layer of protection.

"So where is it?"

"None of your business." Tajima looked disappointed; it was odd that the porn obsession had continued when he was in a position to have three fashion models of either sex in his bed every night. Abe just rolled his eyes, but not commenting meant he had nothing to stall with.

He braced himself, and turned around.

Even knowing what was coming, it was a shock. All the pictures from that time had been stuffed in locked boxes at his parents' a long time ago, and Mihashi didn't make the magazine covers half as much as Tajima did. The occasional glimpse Abe had caught on glossy paper over the past years could never account for the real thing.

His hair was shorter than in Abe's memory, but the cosmetic changes didn't matter. His eyes were the same, wide and watchful and saying too much. He was obviously nervous, but he'd lost the quivers that made him look like he was fidgeting even while standing perfectly still.

_You've grown_, Abe thought, but Mihashi was standing at the open door so he said "come in" instead and turned right back to the safety of dragging Tajima away from his inspection of the bedside table.

"Quit that and come to the kitchen. What do you want to drink?" Not that he had much to offer, but when in doubt going back to the basics was usually the best line of conduct.

It almost made him snicker. So much time, so much effort to cut himself away, and he was just now realizing that he still thought in baseball metaphors.

"That mango and grapefruit and pomegranate juice. The brand that comes in glass bottles?"

Well. Stars really lived in a different world, didn't they.

"What do you want to drink that I won't make you go buy for yourself?" Abe corrected, feeling the familiar wave of mild irritation wash over him. "If it's juice, orange is all I've got." Which was only the case if one made the wild assumption that the leftover bottle at the back of the cupboard was still good.

He looked back at Mihashi to find that he'd only moved far enough inside to close the door. He was just standing there, looking down, hands clenched in a sweater that was only of a marginally better make than the ones he'd worn in highschool. The sight was familiar and had never left Abe unfazed. Back then it had been mostly irritating; now, it was a little painful.

"What about you?" He bit his lip. He'd shot for distant and impersonal and missed by a mile.

Mihashi's head snapped up, making their eyes meet for the first time since _don't look back_, and Abe had been dreading this moment so much that it was almost a disappointment when Mihashi said "W-water is fine."

The stutter hadn't completely gone, then. But that was only a background thought, because Abe's conscious mind was blank as they looked at each other, standing at roughly the same distance as they'd been on that day. He grasped for something to say, anything, maybe something careless to show he'd moved on and wasn't affected, wasn't affected at all and didn't think about it anymore, ever-

The first measure of a recent pop hit broke the silence, snapping their gazes apart.

Abe was sure he wasn't the only one who'd sighed in relief.

"Oh, hi, coach." Tajima was already searching the cupboards for glasses as he answered his phone. "Two hours ago? Really? Well, I got a little caught up in-" His free arm fell back to his side as the sound of someone yelling wafted to them. Tajima turned around, leaned against the sink, and Abe didn't need to hear the rest to know how this was going to end. "Right now? Can't I...? Yeah, okay. Half an hour, I guess."

"Is Oshiro-san very angry?" Mihashi asked, looking like he was going to be sick.

Tajima grimaced. "Coach is always angry. It won't be a problem, but I have to go now."

As expected. And a moment later, true to the speed and agility all of Japan knew him for, Tajima was at the door, looking back but already set to go.

"Sorry I couldn't stay longer," he said, not sounding particularly apologetic. "Ren..."

"Good luck for the game tomorrow," Mihashi cut him off in tones of uncertain awe that propelled Abe back in time to a game long forgotten – bottom of the ninth, two outs, three runs behind and a ticket to Koshien at stake. Or any of a dozen similar games they'd all played together, before.

Tajima shot back a confident grin. Then his gaze slid away, his expression turning serious.

"Abe."

"Good seeing you," Abe lied, holding out a shaky hand. Tajima shook it, firm and warm. He must have liked what he saw, or felt, because his face broke back into a smile as he stepped away. "Don't go disappearing again, okay?"

He didn't wait for an answer before running off. That was not quite the blessing it appeared to be, not when the safety net had just been ripped apart. But there were still inconsequential things to do. Abe stood at the open door for a few more seconds than strictly necessary, then went to prepare their drinks, such as they were.

It only bought him a minute; just time enough to brace himself, wrap his hand protectively around a mug of too-strong coffee.

Mihashi was doing the exact same thing, he realized with a start. His hands were laced around his glass, his eyes staring at it as if it was the most interesting thing in all the world; and the silence stretched on, as if in continuation of a day no amount of alcohol or caffeine had managed to scrub out of Abe's brain.

Mihashi had come to him first, he knew that much. There wasn't a group in Nishiura that gossiped with more dedication and enthusiasm than that year's baseball team, and discussing which pro team's offer Tajima would take had been getting stale. If anyone had had an inkling about Mihashi's situation, it would have come back to Abe within the hour.

So when Mihashi had stood in front of him, looked him in the eye and said _I've had an offer too_, he'd been taken off-guard.

That was as far as his excuse went for how he'd behaved afterwards. Later (much later), he'd thought back on it and identified shock and envy and the fear of being left behind; but at the time, all he'd known was anger.

_I was wrong about you. That's what you've been aiming for all this time, isn't it? In the end, you're no better than him._

Mihashi had tried to deny, to explain – reasons that Abe had reconstructed in his head much later, reason that made too much sense to be ignored.

_You've already made your decision, haven't you? You're not really asking for my opinion. So go. You have my blessing. Fuck off and don't look back._

Abe had been the one to leave the room that day, slamming the door behind him.

Mihashi hadn't followed and it hadn't taken Abe long, in the light of his burning bridges, to realize he was standing on the wrong side of the precipice. But he hadn't known how to fix it and within two weeks Mihashi was gone, leaving Abe with the absolute certitude that the best battery of his career, such as it was, was already a thing of the past.

A pitcher without a catcher could always find a target to throw at. But the other way around, now – that was just pathetic, and Abe had known since long before that he would never find better material than Mihashi.

Now he was back and Abe had no clue why. Still, it was a chance to close a story that had been going on for too long, lift himself out of this slump and move on at last.

Surely, somewhere out there, there was something Abe could find to get excited about. If he apologized. If he could just find the words to say that he knew he'd been wrong, that he'd fucked the whole thing up, that if he could start over he'd make all the right choices from the very first moment, that he hadn't been as upset about Mihashi leaving the team as he had about Mihashi leaving _him_, that he-

"I'm sorry."

Eh?

He looked up from the depths of his mug and into Mihashi's wide eyes. "What..."

"I'm sorry," Mihashi repeated, hands clenching into fists on the counter. "That I was selfish." He took a deep breath, and Abe was still trying to find something to say to that when Mihashi spoke again. "I... I knew I was too stupid to go to university, and when I got the offer, I thought it was the only thing I could do. They didn't tell me I'd have to start training right away, and I thought... I thought I could stay on the team until the tournament ended, but..." His eyes kept moving up and down, as though his instinct was to study his fingernails but he kept forcing himself to look Abe in the eye.

As he apologized for having made the right decision for himself.

It was Abe who looked away.

"Don't apologize."

"But I..."

Mihashi had gone through so many changes in highschool. He'd grown so much, despite Abe's best attempts to fit him into a little box he could be taken out of and put back in at will. Yet nothing had changed his special talent of rewriting history so that everything that ever went wrong was his fault and his only. It looked like three years being a pro player hadn't helped either.

Abe had forgotten how to deal with this.

"You don't regret choosing the pros, do you?"

A minute shake of his head.

"Then you did what was right for you. There's nothing you need to apologize for."

"But I. I promised I'd be Abe-kun's pitcher for three years. I abandoned-"

"It was a long time ago," Abe interrupted, like that was even remotely relevant. "I'm fine. I have everything I need, so..."

His words must have sounded as convincing as they felt. At the very least they weren't enough for Mihashi to stop looking at him like he was still waiting for something that could only be bad. The expression was painfully familiar, from bad pitches and mistakes and defeats, but...

It couldn't really be that simple, could it?

"Mihashi." How long had it been since he'd last said that name out loud? It rolled off his tongue so easily. "I don't hate you."

And just like that Mihashi's tense expression melted into a small smile, the tension seeped from his shoulders.

"Thank you," he whispered.

There was a checklist burned in Abe's memory: every time and occasion in which Mihashi had brought tears to his eyes was recorded there, each of them memorable in its own way. He hadn't thought about it in a very long time, but obviously it was still there, waiting to be taken out for yet another entry.

Had he had any sense as a teenager, Abe would have run away the first time it happened. Or at the latest when he'd realized that he couldn't trust himself when this pitcher was concerned, that he got irritated and touched and sick with worry with no trace of his usual control when Mihashi was around.

That he was using the relaxation training backwards – not touching to comfort, but comfort as an excuse to touch. Even now, his fingers twitched with the instinct to reach out, borne from a time when it had been simpler, more efficient to grab someone's hand than to use words.

"About yesterday..."

What-

Mihashi was looking back at him, the smile faded but not quite gone, and it seemed like he'd decided to move the conversation forward by himself.

"What about yesterday?"

Mihashi looked lost for a moment. "Th-the game, yesterday."

Shit. There was no getting out of that one gracefully, was there? "I haven't been following baseball."

Mihashi blinked, and only then did he seem to notice the complete absence of baseball paraphernalia in the flat. "Oh."

Unbidden, Abe's nails dug into his palms. He could have handled anger or blame, would have welcomed them. He could deal, barely, with Mihashi's need for acceptance – no matter how misplaced it seemed.

But that quiet disappointment...

"I lost."

_I_. 'We' won, but 'I' lost. It made Abe's stomach clench. Back in Nishiura, Mihashi had learned to accept that defeat was supposed to be shared as much as victory. If he was thinking that way again...

_Are they treating you right?  
_  
But it wasn't any of his business. Not anymore.

He got up, too frustrated to stay in place. "I'm sure you did well." The only window was small and dirty, showed nothing but a concrete wall across an alley, but it was better than looking at Mihashi and _worrying_ again. "You're a good-"

"I know."

It was quiet but it was _there_, and Abe's breath caught. This- this was new. It made him want to turn around, take a good hard look at a Mihashi who could speak good of his own ability with no ifs or buts.

"But... "

Or maybe not.

"I wasn't good enough. I-I could have played better. I could _be_ better, if..." He trailed off, but there was something there, building up behind Mihashi's words. Something important that he sounded terrified of saying but wouldn't back away from.

The least Abe could do was look at him when he said it.

Mihashi was still sitting at the counter, his fingers tracing patterns on the surface that from a distance could have been pitch trajectories. He licked his lips once, absently.

"With Abe-kun by my side, I could..."

It didn't hit immediately. The words rang and Abe kept staring blankly. He had to kick-start his brain into understanding the real meaning behind what had just been said, because there was no way Mihashi could actually be asking him-

But he was, wasn't he?

Abe spun around to the safety of the window. His mouth opened, but his throat wasn't working. He shook his head, tried again. "I'm not your catcher anymore." Mihashi's minuscule noise made him bite his lip.

"I know. You. You have a good life." Mihashi's words were tinged with a hint of doubt. Back in school he would have believed Abe's blatant lies over overwhelming experimental proof any day; he seemed to have a little more judgment now, at least.

Obviously not enough, though.

"I-I shouldn't have..."

At some point in the near future Abe was going to learn to get rid of his tears without wiping them off in an obvious fashion, and then he'd turn around and explain that no, no, this wasn't a good idea at all. That Mihashi had already learned everything he had to teach.

That the very idea was ridiculous. The amount of catching up he'd have to do to be even remotely useful... Three years' worth of data on teams, players, stadiums. Mihashi's own team – coach, training program, catcher. He had a part-time job and exams in a month; he'd have to quit everything to get anywhere.

So why did that sound more like a plan of action than reasons to refuse?

"If you need support there are better people," he forced out. "Who have been keeping track of baseball, who have diplomas in sports or something... I'm studying physics. I'm not suited to help you." And that was the truth of it, no matter what his treacherous mind had to say.

Mihashi didn't answer immediately. There were ten seconds of silence, fifteen, twenty. At twenty-five Abe stopped counting, and focused on not breaking down.

"It's Abe-kun I want."

The words struck Abe with more power than he'd thought even Mihashi could wield. And suddenly he was aware of everything. The sound of the glass being laid down on the counter, the scraping noise of the stool being pushed back as Mihashi got up. The image, reflected in the window, of Mihashi coming closer, cornering him.

How the tables had turned.

He'd forgotten how it felt to have so much at stake, the way his heart sped up and his throat clenched and his hands started sweating. Too much time spent not caring about anything, maybe.

Or maybe it was much simpler than that. Maybe it was just Mihashi.

Mihashi, who was deathly afraid of rejection and avoided conflict whenever possible. Mihashi, who had never been outspoken or forceful about anything but his place on the mound.

What it meant that he'd looked for Abe, had come to get him back even after being thrown away so harshly... Abe closed his eyes, and the first tears finally ran down his cheeks.

What it meant, really, was that he was in no position to resist. He took a deep breath and let go, stopped hanging on to safe mediocrity.

Mihashi's hand felt as cold as his when he grabbed it blindly, but that would get better.

Now, it was only a matter of time.


End file.
